


Bedtime story

by apicturewithasmile



Category: The Blacklist (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Lizzington - Freeform, Some fluff as well, cute Red & Agnes scenes, if you aren't up to date with the show then there's a major spoiler, no beta reader - we mess up like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 08:26:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18634465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apicturewithasmile/pseuds/apicturewithasmile
Summary: Takes place a month or two after 6x19. // Liz has taken Agnes back home with her. While the relationship between Liz and Red is still strained and distant because of her betrayal he offers his help in taking care of Agnes anyway. After he tells Agnes a bedtime story things between him and Liz are finally beginning to take an unexpected turn for the better.





	Bedtime story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meetmeatthecoda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meetmeatthecoda/gifts).



> As messed up as the timeline on this show is and since we haven't seen her in like one and a half seasons I have no clue whatsoever how old Agnes is supposed to be right now. I assume she's about 4 but it doesn't really matter that much because I have no idea what kids behave like at what age anyway so... whatever age you feel she acts like in this fic is just how old she is, okay? Don't @ me!

Red stood in the middle of Liz’s living room watching Agnes play on the carpet with a little toy train. He had bought it for her the day he found out that Elizabeth chose it was time for her daughter to finally leave Scottie Hargrave’s care and come home. Despite the distance that currently clouded his relationship with Elizabeth he offered his help with Agnes – knowing full well that Liz would decline and insist on doing it her way: alone.

That was four weeks ago and Liz was feeling more overwhelmed with the task of being a single mother than she’d like to admit to anyone. Having missed so much of Agnes’s childhood already she couldn’t help but doubt she’d ever get better at this. It got increasingly harder for her not to feel like she was never meant to be a mother, like Agnes would be better off being raised by pretty much _anyone_ else. Not a day went by that Agnes wouldn’t ask about her grandmother and Liz had been on the verge of bringing her back to Scottie more than once.

“I see she likes my gift.” Red said, not moving an inch as Agnes chose to crash the toy train right into his left foot repeatedly.

“Agnes, stop that!” Liz said and picked her daughter up. The little girl was holding on tightly to her wooden train and avoided eye contact with both adults.

“That wasn’t a very nice thing to do. You should apologise to Mr. Reddington.”

“It’s fine.” Red said, unable to be mad at Agnes, not even for a moment. Besides, being referred to as “Mr. Reddington” by Elizabeth hurt way more than Agnes using his foot as a playground.

After Liz admitted that she was the one who put him in prison he had made it painfully clear to her that he wouldn’t forgive as easily and quickly as he had in the past. He just couldn’t reconcile her actions with her words. He had spent five years wanting nothing more than to be relevant to her but he would’ve never dreamed of the possibility that she could ever love him. He wasn’t prepared for that. He had contingency plans for everything but this. As far as he was concerned he would either have to brush her three magic words off as emotional manipulation, a lie, an act of pity, anything other than their literal meaning – or he’d have to submit to a reality in which she really meant what she said which would make her betrayal only more painful than it already was.

His inability to choose how to move forward led her to make a choice for the both of them. If he refused to let her in she would take two steps back and rebuild the professional distance she had always been so keen on pretending they had.

“No, it’s not fine.” Liz said, still insisting her daughter should apologise to him.

“Sorry, Raymond.” Agnes mumbled. She looked embarrassed.

At least Agnes was still on first name terms with him. “Apology accepted. You little rascal.” he said and petted the girl’s hair.

“It’s time for her to go to bed now anyway.” Liz said and took the toy train out of Agnes’s hand. “We can talk about the case after I put her to bed.”

“Sure, Agent Keen.” Red said, immediately hating himself for taking this cheap shot.

Agnes protested, clearly not wanting to go to bed, especially not now that they had a visitor.

“Might I be able to convince the young lady to go to sleep with a bedtime story?” Red asked.

“Is it about a princess?” Agnes asked as if to test him.

“Sure. Whatever you want.” he said.

“And a dragon?”

“And a dragon!” Not even twenty-four hours ago he was brokering a weapons deal in the Czech Republic and now he was negotiating bedtime story content. He suddenly had the creeping realisation that he might be stepping on Elizabeth’s toes so he looked at her shyly, hoping for permission. “That is, if you mother doesn’t mind, of course.”

Liz hesitated but then handed Agnes over into his arms. “Good luck!”

* * *

Red pulled over a chair from the corner of the room and sat down next to Agnes’s bed. He put his hat down on her bedside table where a lamp in the shape of a strawberry lit up her room in a soft reddish glow.

She was tucked in tightly, hugging a stuffed bunny and waiting for Red to begin telling his story.

He took a breath, thought about it for a moment and then began. “Once there was a princess who – ”

“Was she pretty?” Agnes interrupted.

“Oh yes, she was very pretty. The prettiest of them all and she lived in a beautiful castle with a prince.”

“Was he pretty, too?”

Red sighed. “On the outside maybe but what the princess didn’t know was that the prince wasn’t a prince at all. He was a liar.”

Agnes’s eyes were wide open. So far she seemed intrigued by his story.

“Anyway…” Red continued. “Life at court had been peaceful for many years until one day, out of nowhere and completely unexpected by anyone, a dragon wandered into the kingdom. Many brave knights had tried capturing the dragon a thousand times before but they never succeeded. One knight in particular had been especially resourceful in his many attempts to slay the dragon – imagine his surprise when the dragon suddenly appeared on his doorstep asking to speak to the princess.”

“The dragon can talk?!”

“Sure the dragon could talk. But you have to be careful what you believe him. Dragons are notorious liars. Everything about him was a lie.”

Agnes nodded as if she was making a mental note to herself and held on tighter to her bunny.

“So the knights locked the dragon up in a cage and called for the princess who came quickly to see the dragon and speak to him. He convinced her and the knights that he came in peace and that he wanted to help them keep the kingdom safe if in return they would free him from the cage and let him go on with his dragon-business. They agreed but no matter how many villains the dragon would successfully chase away the knights only ever saw him as a dragon. Some were afraid of him, others wanted to defeat him. The princess, however, wasn’t afraid at all. In fact, she was beginning to see what he truly was.”

Agnes sat up in her bed and interrupted him once more. “What was he?”

Red smiled at her and then leaned over to tuck her back into her blanket. “I’ll tell you next time, okay? It’s time to sleep now.”

“No, I want to know now!” she demanded through a yawn as her eyes got smaller and smaller.

“You are very much you mother’s daughter, aren’t you?” he said, more to himself than to Agnes who had just closed her eyes and fell asleep. “Sleep tight.”

* * *

When he stepped back into the living room, Liz was sitting on the sofa looking right at him. The room was only dimly lit and he almost didn’t notice her at first.

“Do I also have to wait or will you tell me now?” she asked.

“Tell you what?”

“What the dragon really was.”

She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees. Her face now being brightly lit by the only lamp that was turned on in the room he could see she had been crying.

“You tell me!” he said. His upper lip was twitching as a rush of adrenaline made him feel very dizzy all of a sudden.

“Well, it’s not _my_ story, is it? It’s yours, Ilya.”

She hadn’t mentioned this name again since she first did in Hong Kong but it had been lingering in the air between them ever since, waiting on the tip of her tongue for the right moment to be used again, be it as weapon or a vow. The way it just slipped out now, unplanned and without warning, wasn’t how she had imagined it to happen at all but there was no taking it back now.

The lump building up in his throat made it hard to breathe and impossible to speak. His instincts told him to run out of the apartment, away from this situation, away from her, away from himself. But something in him was stronger tonight than in the thousand nights prior. Somewhere between all the fear and pain he found the courage to admit to himself what he had tried to deny for so long. He finally accepted that he wanted nothing more than for her to love him, that there was no amount of self-loathing big enough to silence his desire to be with her.

“Lizzie.” was the first thing he could say when he had his speech back.

She stood up from the sofa and walked towards him. A tear was running down her cheek but much to his surprise was met by a smile on her lips.

“I don’t know how to do this.” he said.

She stood directly in front of him now, only a breath away. “Do what?”

“Be myself.”

“Maybe I can help with that.” she said and placed a hand on his chest as she leaned in to kiss him.

The second her lips touched his he felt something he hadn’t felt in nearly three decades – he felt like himself.

“Red.” she whispered under her breath in between kisses.

“No.” he said. “Call me Ilya.”


End file.
